The burning question...

After a long and detailed investigation (we opened the wall switch) Rod used his extensive knowledge and experience to identify what he believed may have been causing the sub-optimal performance of the fan in Thalia’s room …

Style Icon

My boy's a style icon! Imagine my surprise last Friday, at a 9 year old birthday party (that is, a party for a 9 year old, not a party which didn't know when to end) when the Mum of one of Keir's classmates came up and told me Suraj wants a ponytail because Keir's got a ponytail.

He's such a trendsetter! I'm sure Suraj would look good with a ponytail. We won't be in India by the time he has it, as Suraj currently has a number 3 cut!

Vegetarian shop discovered in Hauz Khas

I know where the vegetarian shop is! The paneer selling vegetarian shop. What Bapi meant was one of the vegetable stalls down the high street. Now why didn't I think of this? Possibly because the vegetable stall consists of a plank of wood on a couple of trestle legs, and no refrigeration? Bapi took me down the street and I admit I wasn't expecting to stop at a veggie stall. But under the table, in an esky (coolbox) was paneer and a big block of ice. Considering how often the electricity goes off, and how shopkeepers don't like paying for electricity to keep refrigeration units cold (it must be true - I read it in the papers!), a big block of ice is probably just as reliable, maybe more so!

Cooking with gas

One of the delights of India is the relative cheapness of household help. This is a delight, because I love household help, but I'm cheap! The daily maid is no luxury - India is so dusty, and the doors and windows so ill-fitting, floors have to be swept and washed daily. And dishwashers do exist, that's the maid again! We've had a part-time maid since we arrived last year, and send our ironing out to the press-wallah down the street (for the princely sum of 3 rupees an item, less than 5 pence!) but have not succumbed to any more help. But now we've splashed out and hired a cook! Bapi comes to us each Tuesday, and spends 90 minutes or so making 20 rotis (chapatis), a paneer (cheese) dish and a vegetable dish. This gives us two family meals each week, for 800 rupees (£10) a month! All I have to do is provide the ingredients - Bapi turns them into dinner. Bloody marvellous as far as I'm concerned!

So Bapi gave me a shopping list, and last Monday I went off to make sure I had all the right ingredients. He said to buy 2kg of Atta (wheat flour) at Big Apple, one of the local shops. I went to Big Apple, and right inside the door they had 2kg boxes of Atta. I bought one of those. And I went to Mother Dairy, the milk stall, and bought the paneer. And I bought a large selection of whole spices I've probably never cooked with before. Maybe I have, but Masterfoods wrote in English on the outside of those bottles. These spices weren't in bottles, nor were the labels in English, so I called on another lady customer to help me identify them. Big cardamon, green cardamon, black cardamon...I'm not even sure if we like cardamon! But I was pleased with my purchases. Shopping for unfamiliar ingredients, when you only know their names in a language not used on the labelling, isn't the easiest job!

Unfortunately Bapi was less pleased with my purchases than I was. He couldn't understand why I had bought that box of Atta. As far as I could see, it was the product he'd asked for, the size he'd asked for, in the shop he sent me to. But it was the wrong kind of Atta. And I'd bought the wrong kind of paneer. It was starting to feel like I was back in Britain, on the platform at Motspur Park, listening to British Rail explaining that the late arrival of my train was because the autumn leaves on the line were the wrong kind of leaves, or the snow in winter was the wrong kind of snow... Bapi was confused as to why I had gone to Mother Dairy (the milk shop) to buy the paneer (a dairy product). The best paneer, he told me, is found in the Sweet shop or at the vegetarian shop. I've told him he's going to need to take me shopping this week. I'd never ever have thought to look in the sweet shop for cheese, and I don't even know which shop in the market is the vegetarian shop. No shop in the market has that written on their shopfront, not even spelled incorrectly!

Straight, sort of...

Thought you'd enjoy seeing one of my Nehru Place purchases. I asked for half a metre of this checked fabric. The young man behind the counter snipped and tore the fabric to make a straight edge he could measure from. He then cut this piece for me.

It's 66cm at the short end, 85cm at the other. I'm so glad he tore to get a straight edge to start with! To think we used bitch about the fabric not being cut straight in quilt shops in the UK!

Wet T-Shirt Competition

Yesterday I took part in an impromptu "Wet T-shirt" competition. And I won! I was at least 15 years younger, and 15 kilos lighter than the other three participants, so it wasn't that tough a job. But we were all white women, so we were going to be stared at, wet or dry!

Yesterday I went out shopping with some members of my quilt group. We were going to go to Lajpat Nagar, a market (new to me) where they had silk threads, beads and buttons, and then on to Nehru Place to check out some fabric shops. When there's fabric on offer, a little bit of rain was never going to deter us. It's the monsoon season after all. It's supposed to rain. As it turned out, it was the second wettest day this season, just under 44mm (1 and 3/4 inches), and all in the two hours we were outside!

After a while, you can't get much wetter. And as we found out, if you hold the plastic bags containing your purchases to your chest, that at least stays dry. This prevents your clothes clinging to your nipples quite as badly as they could. See, it's important to shop!!

Bug Update

Those teeny tiny ants I told you about last month have, like Elvis, left the building. Hooray! They had to be tackled, so Rod found a packet of powdered cement. He mixed it up in the bottom of a coke bottle using all his cement mixing knowledge (zilch, but there were no instructions), and applied it to the join between the tiles and the window sill in the kitchen. That's where we'd seen the ants enter. And we had no more ants, until the next day. The next day the ants had moved to using gate no.2, otherwise known as the join between two pieces of wood in the window frame. This wood is brown, so the white powdered cement was going to look ugly. We went out to see if we could find a prettier fix. Trust me, if we couldn't we were happy to go with white cement! Luckily we found some clear silicone sealant. We even found one of those guns you place the silicone cylinder in. We didn't find the nozzle you put on the front of the cylinder to direct the sealant where you want it to go, but two out of three ain't bad! So using two high tech tools (his finger and a toothpick) Rod applied the silicone and we had no more ants, until the next day. The next day the ants had moved to using gate no.3, a hole in the window frame near the right hand window. Rod used the sealant and his high tech tools to plug this hole. And we had no more ants, until the next day. Now, try as we might, we couldn't see where gate no. 4 was, but it obviously existed, because we still had ants. So we decided to try a different tack, and went and bought a can of Mortein Gold All Insect Killer. This is pretty impressive stuff, because all we did was place the can on the counter. All the ants ran away! And they must have sealed gate no. 4, because they haven't come back!

The Breezers are back in town

Back in April something dreadful happened. The slots on the liquor shop shelves where the Bacardi Breezers should be became bare. This was bad, because Breezers are 35 rupees each, about the same as a can of soft drink. A bottle of Indian wine costs fifteen times this, imported wine about twice the Indian wine price. So you can see why Rod and I enjoyed having unfettered access to Breezers. But like Old Mother Hubbard's, the wine shop cupboard was bare, and it wasn't until we opened the newspaper one morning we discovered why. Breezers are manufactured under licence in India, and the existing licences expired at the end of March. Someone forgot to file the papers requesting the renewal of the IMFL (Indian Made Foreign Liquor) , so production had to stop until the new licences were issued. In a country which so values paperwork, especially when carbon paper is involved, failing to have the right papers was a really big mistake. It seems the authorities wouldn't allow the licences to be fast-tracked, as it's taken four months for Breezers to get back to the shops. Maybe they didn't offer a bribe, or the bribe wasn't big enough, or the Commissioner for Excise is a whisky drinker. And it wasn't just the licence for Bacardi Breezers that had been overlooked, many of the foreign beer brands were also withdrawn. You couldn’t buy Fosters, not even in the Australian High Commission. Strewth! What’s the world coming to!

Newspaper musings

I found a number of articles amusing in yesterday's newspaper, so I thought I'd share them with you. On page 17, one past an entire page of Vladimir Putin's summer holiday snaps (which I did not find amusing, does he think Carly Simon wrote "You're So Vain" for him?)

Bugger, I seem to have misplaced my shirt, again

there was an article entitled "Chinese trust prostitutes more than govt officials". Results of an online survey found sex workers were considered more trustworthy than government officials and scientists. 91% of respondents admitted they'd take government data with a pinch of salt, because they feel they have been fed so many lies in the past. After all, what's the worst lie a prostitute's going to tell you: "Oooh Sir, that's the biggest one I've seen!"

And on the back page, Ross Brawn, head of Formula One team, Brawn GP, could lose his licence after being acccused of driving 30 mph over the speed limit in May. At least the man has enough money to pay for a driver for the duration of the ban. I understand Nelson Piquet Jr's available...

Legal at last!

Well who would have thunk it! Not I certainly, when Rod came home from the FRRO at 12.30. He'd seen the man at Counter 4, who had looked over all our papers. Counter 4 guy noticed our visas had expired and queried this with the Incharge. Rod doesn't know much Hindi, but he recognised the word "penalise". The Incharge waved him away. She knew it was their incompetance, not ours..

Rod been told to come back at 2pm with an "undertaking letter" from his employer, nothing to do with funerals, but a letter "undertaking" they would pay to have us repatriated to the UK if we were naughty. Thankfully one of the company directors lives in the next suburb, so Rod made it back to the FRRO on time. Unfortunately, power was out at the FRRO. Luckily they have a battery operated emergency light like we do. Ours doesn't give off much light, but at least it stops us bumping into chairs. Theirs is the same size as ours, and their office is about the same size as our whole house. It wasn't giving off enough light for the counter staff to check the badly photocopied forms they are so willing to accept, so Rod just waited. Power was restored at 2.45. The undertaking letter was okayed, and the stamp pad came out to finalise our registration. Then Counter 4 guy gave Rod 3 visa forms and told him to fill them out. Rod did. He asked for our passports. Rod handed them over. He stamped them. We didn't think we'd get this far without a trip up to the Home Affairs Office (the place where they take all day to give you the brown envelope covered in seals that you're not allowed to open). Then he told Rod to go to the Cash payments desk and pay for our visas. Rod calls me, because he doesn't have enough cash on him (16,000 rupees, or about £200) to pay for the visas, and there's no ATM at the FRRO. So I get cash at the market, throw the kids in the car and rush there.

First day of school. Morning, obviously, we're still clean and tidy!

The security guard at the FRRO won't let us in, because I cannot show him my passport. I try to explain my passport is already in the building. I call Rod, and he comes to the guard, who decides the kids and I can enter. We pay at the Cash desk and get sent to the Incharge. At 5pm the Incharge signs our visa stamps and we are legal! Until June next year! We don't have to visit the FRRO again, unless we move house. And trust me, we're not going to move house, because we're not going to the FRRO again!

Today is Rakhi, a lovely Hindu celebration. Brothers pledge to look after their sisters for ever. Sisters tie a decorated string or rakhi on their brother's wrist as a remembrance. They in turn are given a small gift, like chocolates.

Big Brothers - Keir and Raju

Illegal aliens

I thought I'd give you all an update on the status of our visas. And no, just in case anyone was wondering, we're not legal yet. Rod, the kids and I spent four and a half hours yesterday at the FRRO. Our papers have arrived (finally!) from Gurgaon, and now we are in a position to move forward. Unfortunately the fact that this was Rod's fifth visit (and the kids and my second) since July 23, and the fact that we had been in the office for many, many hours already did not allow us to complete our visa extensions, because we hadn't filled in the necessary forms (possibly because we'd never been given them!). But we left the office with two different forms to fill out (in triplicate) and the Incharge told Rod to return with them in the morning. He kindly said we needn't bring the kids again. This is a good thing, because school starts today and Thalia doesn't want to miss it. Keir said he didn't mind if he missed school, probably because he played on his DS for the whole four and a half hours! So Rod is back at the FRRO. I don't expect we will get our visa extensions today. The forms we were given all relate to our re-registration in Delhi. We aren't overly concerned about not being registered in the right district, but the FRRO obviously thinks it's vitally important. I think this is a step we just have to go through. But I am hopeful we will complete the registration today. Hopefully.

One year down...

Today is the first anniversary of our departure from Britain. You'd think in all that time we'd have learnt a few things about life in India. For example, it's a good idea to have lots of torches to deal with the frequent power failures. It's even better if you know where they are before the lights go out! We have a battery powered emergency light which comes on when the mains power fails. This gives us enough light to find the important things we need, like torches. But last night I gave the emergency light to Thalia, because the lights went out just as she'd put the conditioner on her hair. Her need was the greatest. But what I should have done was located another torch before I handed over the emergency light, because once it was in her bathroom, I was in the dark!